Bridge of the Day #1218

A mildly rainy day seemed the perfect opportunity to go to the beach, where I’d be certain to see the world disappear into an anonymous haze where the gray sky and white waves melted together.

Natural Bridges was almost deserted; the only other human souls were a passing surfer and two dark shapes huddled in conversation. The tide was low and the waves were soft, and I had the whole mirrored beach to myself.

On the other side of the bridge, I found a crew of little while birds picking at food in the surf. When the waves came in the scampered away, matching their reflections step for step.

There is, somewhere, an old and reclusive civilization that grew to control the forces of Nature but never worked up the courage to leave home. Hoping to make contact with other cultures, they weaved their stories into the waves and sent them across the sea, curled like rolls of parchment. When these waves reach land, they break and the stories unfurl, written in sea-foam script; you can see these yourself any time you go to the water.

No one has ever deciphered the waves, though, and these innumerable stories may go unread forever.